[ On Mon, June 15, 1998 at 16:23:56 (-0400), Perry E. Metzger wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: port-alpha/5586: port alpha does not define "unix"
>
> Greg A. Woods writes:
> > Indeed, lots of software *does* rely on it, and it can often be used
> > very effectively. Although the use of "unix" isn't specified in POSIX
> > or The Single UNIX Specification (to the best of my knowledge), neither
> > do any standards preclude its use (again, to the best of my knowledge).
>
> Polluting the user namespace is, in fact, forbidden.
I've been unable to find chapter and verse stating that in the "Single
UNIX Specification". In fact I can't even find any mention of cpp in
the Specification, and no mention of what the default manifest defines
provided by the preprocessor are (only there may be some and that they
may be undefined with the '-U' opton). All it says in the cc
description is that "Additional implementation-dependent names may be
provided by the compiler."
Perhaps you're thinking of the more anally restrictive POSIX and ISO
standards, and in particular conformace to ISO's Standard C. X/Open is
much more lax as it intends to encompass existing practice rather than
simply define it.
In any case, NetBSD need not be so anal, esp. for something widely used
and expected. Obviously it could define a name in the reserved space
(eg. __unix__ or similar), but this wouldn't really help make anything
more portable.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 443-1734 VE3TCP <gwoods@acm.org> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>